


Briar's Question

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [34]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Gen, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 01:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briar fled, leaving Rosethorn’s cackle behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Heads Not Better Than One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

Briar watched his teacher for a moment as she worked over a set of labelled jars and bags of dried plant-stuffs. The woman was working intently. But, apparently, not _too_ intently.

            “Boy, I’ll grow a second head if you don’t stop staring.” She turned and flashed him a wicked green. “And aren’t I pleasant enough with just the one?”

            He gawped at the idea of a two-headed Rosethorn—the bark of one was bad enough—and gulped. “I have a question.”

            “And are you going to ask it?” Rosethorn sprinkled dry leaves into one of the jars without looking. “They go rotten when you don’t, you know—poison you.”

            His question erupted with incredible speed. “Can-I-go-to-Summersea-with-Gorse-because-he-invited-me-and-said-he’ll-teach-me-about-the-plants-in-Emelanese-and-Yanjingyi-food?”

Rosethorn cackled as he drew an impressive breath. At last she answered, “That depends.”

            He steeled himself for rejection. “On what?”

            “On what Lark says.” Rosethorn raised a brow. “I’d have no time to myself if I concerned myself with your whereabouts whenever you’re not due in lesson time with me, boy. Lark cares.”

            “You just like being mean and putting it all on her,” he argued, and immediately regretted it—what if she told Lark to say no, now, or just said no herself?

            She looked him up and down, brown eyes unreadable. At last her face split into another grin. “Lark can take it. Can _you?_ ” Rosethorn held up a jar to him, as if to entice him. “Because I can feel that second head growing in, and she’ll be ready to gnaw on the bones of pesky little boys who bother their teachers in off-hours.”

            Briar fled, leaving Rosethorn’s cackle behind.


	2. Keeping Schedules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lark?” Briar called from Discipline’s dining area.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

            “Lark?” Briar called from Discipline’s dining area.

            “In my workroom,” Lark answered back, voice lilting and kind—kinder than the crows-call cackling he could still hear from _Rosethorn’s_ workroom. Briar followed the sound of her voice and found her spinning thread on the floor. She didn’t look up as he approached, but asked nonetheless, “Yes Briar?”

            “Rosethorn sent me.”

            “Surprising,” Lark remarked; he could tell somehow that she was smiling. “Whatever for?”

            “Gorse invited me to Summersea so he could teach me about food plants. I was wondering if I could go.” Briar scuffed his foot nervously. He really was set on this.

            “When did he invite you?” Lark questioned, sounding every bit like a curious cat-meowl.

            “…last night…”

            Lark laughed. “As long as you didn’t tell Rosie _that_ and it isn’t during lesson time, sure, you may go. When?”

            The Hub clock struck the hour. Briar looked sheepish. “Now.”

            “You surely took your time. Head along then.” And in an instant he was gone, Lark calling after him, “But don’t forget your _shoes!_ ”

            When she entered Rosethorn’s workroom later, the woman grinned up at her. “He called me mean, you know, for putting the scheduling on you.”

            Lark smiled. “Then let him never know you’re terrible at scheduling anything but plants.”

            “That is not—”

            “When is Sandry’s birthday? Or, for that matter, Daja’s, Tris’ or even Briar’s?”

            “The _last_ one’s a trick—Briar hasn’t got a birthday.” Rosethorn’s eyebrow arched high, the other drawn down into a frown. After a moment they both jumped and Rosie shrugged a shoulder. “But I suppose you’re right. Though I know _your_ birthday.”

            “And it only took you half a decade.”

            Rosethorn threw soil at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! C:

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C:


End file.
